Are you taking a deep breath now that the mid-term election is over? How can we not breathe a sigh or relief as we taper off a $1 billion campaign? Political ads were everywhere: on radio, television, newspaper and social media feeds. There was no escape. I was subjected to a new ad every couple of minutes watching Best Blind Auditions of The Voice Mongolia on YouTube. Even when I went as far away as Mongolia, those ads found me.
This was less a political campaign than a marketing extravaganza. There was no mistaking how the marketing tools of the GOP far outweighed those of the Democrats. With the Oval Office in constant motion, the arrival of the president or vice president at various venues was a series of unstoppable media moments. While presidential visits aren’t a new development on the mid-term campaign trail, the numbers, optics and exaggerations are historical standouts.
Those who focused on presidential lies virtually ran out of breath in the final days of the campaign. Jake Tapper reported that the president told four lies a minute. Paul Krugman’s column, “A Party Defined by its Lies,” underscored the convenient Republican turnabout on pre-existing conditions, an experience one of my cohorts described as swallowing a sudden glob of fat that would barely fit down a pig’s gullet. Not to mention the labeling of the “caravan” trodding toward our Southern border as a bunch of outlaws, gang members and Middle Eastern terrorists requiring more troops to safeguard Americans than we currently have in war-torn Afghanistan.
Despite objections by pundits and opponents, the lies do not and have not generated outrage in large sections of our population. Instead, there’s been buy-in to the political circus.
Chattanooga had a front row seat at this circus last Sunday. Standing-room only at Bessie Smith Hall for Phil Bredesen was hardly the same as standing-room only at McKenzie Arena with President Donald Trump, Vice Mike President Pence and U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Bredesen’s security was modest compared to the stadium’s combined Secret Service, FBI and local law enforcement. Bredesen’s arrival was invisible compared to the landing of both Air Force 1 and 2, plus the presidential motorcade. Booths lined the arena streets selling T-shirts and hats with eye-catching symbols, with some of them sporting ugly, dehumanizing slogans.